Huge congratulations to Millie on securing a role at WTW with a start at the end of August 2018. We caught up with her after she returned from travelling in India and she shared with us her experience of the application process and some useful advice for future applicants.
Why did you choose to apply to WTW?
WTW is a huge company with a global reputation. Everyone knows about it and wants to be in it and that helped drive me with my application. I wanted to be a part of this top actuarial company. Also, it’s an international company so the opportunity to be able to work and travel to different parts of the world while working for them really appealed to me.
Why did you choose this role?
I chose to apply to the Insurance Consulting graduate role. I wanted to do something which can be quite varied and I knew I really didn’t want to go into pensions so I decided to go for this. Plus, I know this role had the possibility to move into looking at dealing with natural disaster insurance and I find that sort of stuff really interesting, especially looking at things like earthquakes.
What was the toughest part of the application process?
I found a few of the online tests not great but the assessment centre was by far the hardest part. It was a full 9-5 day consisting of a bunch of different sections and exercises. While the exercises were of course difficult the assessors were all very friendly and helpful throughout which was really reassuring considering how tense all us applicants were! We had a bunch of different challenges, there was the classic group project where we were given a case study to analyse and report back on. We also got given an e-tray exercise where we were given about 20 emails to sort through in a limited time and then produce a report on, we had to do this individually and I found this the most challenging part. There were tests which we did there on the day too as well as competency-based interview questions.
What are three top tips would you give your fellow Bright Network Members?
- Research the company beforehand, this is so important you really need to go in with as much knowledge of what the company does, how its structured, who works there, who the company’s clients are and so on.
- Practice everything prior to the assessment days! Look up interview questions that are typically asked and learn and think about your answers. Do the same with practice tests too.
- Be confident! If you’ve made it to the assessment centre you’re obviously a strong candidate so believe in yourself. It also allows for you to make friends on the day which can help calm you down!
What was the hardest interview question you faced?
“How many people visit Heathrow Airport in a day?”
